This morning at the Tom Green County Court, 25-year-old Isidro Delacruz, Jr., made his way to Judge Ben Woodward’s courtroom. Two Tom Green County Sheriff’s deputies accompanied the capital murder suspect.
With a serious face and chains clinking, Delacruz walked with a stoic face to the front of the courtroom to sit with his attorneys. District Attorney Allison Palmer took her spot across from the Defense team.
Today consisted of another pre-trial in the Delacruz case. Delacruz faces capital murder of 5-year-old Niaya Villegas in 2014. See our previous articles here and here.
Because of the nature of the case, and the amount of documentation presented to the court, the jury trial will be postponed once more.
“As much as I hate to do it, I don’t think we can go to trial this month,” said Judge Woodward.
To begin, Palmer gave personnel files to Judge Woodward. These consisted of eight sets of clipped pages from TGC personnel records of people recently added to the witness list and seven disks and six folders from the Sheriff’s Office on witnesses.
The court will need to rule on Motion 55, 32, or 50 in regards to what records must be provided on personnel records of CSCD employees. This must be either criminal history or entire personnel files.
Palmer told Woodward the State has received a preliminary DNA report from DPS labs on the latest submission, but she’s waiting for a final report and may need to test trace evidence, and possibly hair samples found as well. The Defense and Palmer will visit after the hearing to discuss this more.
“I don’t know how much time this will take,” Woodward said.
Palmer explained there’s usually a quick turnaround time.
“It appears they’re trying to expedite analysis for us,” Palmer said.
Additionally, the Defense team brought up Motion 58, which asks that the court not publish or announce alternate jurors until the start of proceedings because this will “lower the threshold of attention during the trial.”
The Defense also asked if Woodward can review Motion 59 records because of “compliance” concerns. On the State side, Palmer said she wasn’t sure what Motion 59 was requesting, and said, “It’s unclear.”
“We can just hold that one off,” said Judge Woodward.
Next, Motion 60: Motion of Continuance was granted because of additional lab testing, and so the court can review about 9,000 pages of CPS records and personnel files.
Judge Woodward asked Amy Hennington Luhrs, an attorney for the Department of Child Protective Services, to explain the information the court would be looking at.
The CPS official said there are five discs of “redacted and un-redacted pages.” Redacted information includes dates of birth, driver’s license numbers and social security numbers. There are also four other discs full of audio, photographs and other documents.
After further discussion, Woodward said since CPS has provided what it has thus far, the court will only request something if it “stands out.”
Because of the number of documents to still review, Judge Woodward feels more time is needed—hence the delay for the trial.
He apologized to the attorneys since they adjusted their calendars. However, he said he thinks everything will be ready to go in November.
The Defense and State agreed to meet with Woodward for a scheduling hearing on Aug. 22, 2016 at 9 a.m. to determine the trial date once more.
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